Pradhan out of jail, Fakir in custody: Cong flags fresh Nandigram crackdown

• Congress candidate Milan Pradhan returns to Nandigram campaign trail on Wednesday after being released on interim bail by Calcutta High Court.

• On the same day, Congress campaigners Manik Fakir and Sukritiranjan Biswas are detained while preparing to campaign for Pradhan.

• Congress alleges political harassment, while police say Fakir was accused of hate speech; precise grounds for detention not immediately clear.

Nandigram in West Bengal saw fresh political friction on Wednesday, 30 September as Congress candidate Milan Pradhan returned to the campaign trail after 12 days in custody, while two Congress campaigners, writer and social activist Manik Fakir and Sukritiranjan Biswas, were detained by police in Chandipur.

Pradhan, who was released on interim bail by Calcutta High Court, immediately resumed campaigning for the 6 October Nandigram Assembly by-election. The court has allowed him to remain out of custody and campaign until 20 October, directing him to surrender before the concerned trial court on 21 October.

Pradhan was arrested in connection with six criminal cases dating back to the 2007 Nandigram anti-land acquisition movement, including a murder case.

Soon after his release, Pradhan alleged that the police had attempted to force him out of the electoral race. He claimed that plainclothes officers had abducted him from Chandipur on 18 September and taken him to a hotel in Mandarmani, where he was allegedly offered inducements to withdraw his candidature.

“I was busy campaigning. After a full day of campaigning, I was resting in Chandipur when plainclothes police suddenly arrived and forcibly took me away,” Pradhan said.

He alleged that the officers blindfolded him with a gamchha and drove him to Mandarmani, where senior police officers allegedly asked him what he wanted in return for withdrawing from the contest. “They asked me what I wanted, promising that I would get whatever I desired by the next day if I simply withdrew my candidacy,” he said. “There were IPS and DSP-rank officers present. I told them that I engage in politics based on principles and could not do what they were asking.”

He alleged that he was taken back to Chandipur in the early hours of the morning and arrested, describing the episode as an “abduction” and saying he had feared for his life.

The police have not accepted these allegations. East Midnapore superintendent of police Anshuman Saha and Nandigram police station inspector-in-charge Ajay Kumar Mishra did not respond to requests for comment.

The state government has challenged the high court's interim bail order in the Supreme Court. The apex court declined to take up the matter immediately and scheduled the hearing for Monday, 5 October, a day before polling.

While Pradhan was returning to the campaign trail, police detained Fakir and Biswas, who had recently joined the Congress and were staying at a guest house in Chandipur. According to Congress leaders, the two were stopped as they left for Nandigram to campaign for Pradhan. They were taken to the police station after allegedly refusing to accompany the officers.

Biswas was subsequently released outside Chandipur police station, while Fakir remained in custody and was being questioned. Senior police officers said Fakir was accused of making a hate speech, though the precise grounds for his detention were not immediately clear.

“We were detained from the guest house this morning, but the police did not specify the reason,” Fakir said. Biswas alleged that the action was intended to disrupt the Congress campaign. “We were detained solely to disrupt our election campaign,” he said.

The Congress condemned the police action. State Congress president Subhankar Sarkar alleged that Fakir and Biswas had been targeted solely for campaigning for the party. “Harassment of this kind will not stop Milan Pradhan's campaign. This incident proves that democracy in Bengal is currently in a very precarious state,” Sarkar said.

AICC in-charge for West Bengal Prakash Joshi also questioned the administration's role, describing the detention as “undemocratic and authoritarian”.

The latest developments add another layer to the increasingly charged Nandigram contest. Trinamool Congress candidate Sanchita Pradhan Dey withdrew her nomination, after which former chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the party would support Pradhan.

Pradhan was subsequently arrested in connection with the old Nandigram cases, an episode the Congress had described as an attempt to keep its candidate out of the contest.